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Essay; Looking Beyond Peace

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"There's a story behind every one of those ornaments," said Richard Nixon, looking more robust than he has in years, showing me the Christmas tree in his home. Lest sentiment intrude, he quickly turned to the purpose of my annual visit: a review, parts on the record, of what's ahead.

Stacked on his desk is the manuscript of his latest book. On the 20th of next month (the 25th anniversary of his first Inaugural Address), the 37th President, who will then be 81, will bring out "Beyond Peace." The theme of this 150-pager -- likely to be his eighth nonfiction best seller, a publishing record -- is: "After peace breaks out, we usually have periods of stagnation; we must find challenges as stimulating as war."

Nixon, in his nonpartisan years, has not lurched leftward: "When the rest of the world is turning away from big government, we shouldn't be turning toward it. The problem with 'reinventing government' is that they want government to be doing better the things that government shouldn't be doing in the first place."

He hopes that Bill Clinton keeps his centrist Nafta coalition together, dropping the McGovernite left over the side. But do voters really care about foreign economic policy? That's not the point: "The public's interest in Nafta was not in the issue, but in the battle."

Though the battlefield on which Clinton feels most at home is domestic affairs, Nixon -- the old Moscow summiteer -- thinks this President should not hesitate to share what he has recently learned in the Nafta fight with Boris Yeltsin at next month's Moscow summit.

"Clinton could give Yeltsin good counsel," says Nixon, "on how to deal within a multi-party system. It's the kind of hard-earned advice that Yeltsin can use now."

Can we help relieve the tension building between Russia and Ukraine? "Our line to Ukraine should not be to deal with them just because they have nuclear weapons, but because they have 55 million people and you don't want a rogue state." He's high on Ukraine's Kravchuk, and thinks the U.S could be a broker in the delicate nuclear disarmament.

Nixon has urged Yeltsin to press ahead on privatization. "To paraphrase Churchill, the free market is the worst economic system except for all the others. But the central question in Russia is: Can democratic capitalism provide progress better than Communist capitalism, the kind they have in China?"

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He gave me a mock-suspicious look. "Weren't you the one who put me up to saying 'We are all Keynesians now'? Well, we are all capitalists now. If democratic capitalism fails in Russia, that will be water on China's wheels." That's why we should encourage reform, a movement greater than individual reformers, in Russia.

What about India, a democratic nation, where capitalism is lagging? "India, which will be more populous than China in the next century, must ask itself this question: Can democratic socialism compete with Communist capitalism?" To pose the question is to answer it -- only capitalism, however modified, can compete with capitalism -- but I had never heard it posed before.

Nixon is too much the pragmatist on China, preferring quiet diplomacy and bonds of trade to public pressure on human rights: "Economic freedom will open up any closed society."

But his newer theme is "there isn't any third world anymore. Only two worlds, rich and poor. Wealth divides China, East and West Europe, the north and south nations."

On hot-button issues at home, he remains progressive. Abortion: "The state should stay out; don't subsidize and don't prohibit." Gun control: "I'd go further than the Brady bill. Guns are an abomination." (From this I deduce he is not running in '96.)

On TV violence: "Hollywood thinks America is sick -- hunh! They're the sick ones." He's against the balanced budget amendment -- "a meat ax when you need a stiletto, but it'll probably pass" -- and in favor of term limits: "incumbents have asked for it."

Assessments of the Clinton Presidency and the Republican field, as well as his views on initiatives on health, education and welfare, await appearances at publication time. For now, it's inspiring to see the old warrior using every minute as a golden bullet, staying well by staying productive -- never, never quitting.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on December 6, 1993, on Page A00017 of the National edition with the headline: Essay; Looking Beyond Peace. Today's Paper|Subscribe